


Child of War (The Post-War Remix)

by hhertzof



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Doctor Who - Various Authors
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Remix, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 06:58:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Swept up in the Time War, Ace & Hex's daughter is fighting for her very existence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Child of War (The Post-War Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livii/gifts).
  * Inspired by [No Ordinary War](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/30152) by livii. 



> Thanks to paranoidangel and morbane for the betas.

Cassie McShane is curled up on the sofa in the nondescript hotel room, her hands round her cup of tea. She doesn't know what city they're in or even if this is real or all in her mind, but the tea cup is solid and reassuring. "We can't let them do this to us." Cassie doesn't even know how old she is - her last clear memories are of living in Seattle when she was five, with her parents. Of standing beside Ace and Hex as the Doctor told her she didn't exist. She feels like an adult though, even if she can't remember what happened along the way.

"We may not have a choice." Johnny Chesterton looks tired, but Johnny always looks tired these days. "They want us, they don't want us, they can't make up their minds. I thought they were supposed to be the superior species. All wise and benevolent. I've had bandmates who were more decisive."

Cassie can't remember if she's ever met his bandmates, but she's heard stories even if she can't remember where.

"It all depends on how the war is going," Alex Campbell says. "Mum says the faction in control keeps changing and no one can decide if we'd be an asset or a threat. But her knowledge comes second hand - she's been away from Gallifrey far too long to be a part of the inner circle and no one's going to let Grandfather in."

"If he knew about us-" Cassie starts to reply, before she catches herself. That isn't even an option right now. "But we can't tell him. Sarah Jane says he doesn't find out till Demons' Run, wherever and whatever that is." Sarah Jane would know, if anyone did. Cassie's own parents had been woven into the War timeline much too early to be of any use, but the Time Lords hadn't noticed Sarah Jane sticking her nose in until it was too late. Now they were just throwing crisis after crisis at her, keeping her off balance, keeping her from interfering. Treating her much like they did the Doctor. The four of them had a pool as to how long the status quo would last before Sarah Jane got the upper hand, but for now they couldn't count on her help. "Where's Lauren anyway? She hasn't been erased from history again, has she?"

The other two look decidedly worried. They've all disappeared at some point in this conversation, fading in and out of history as it's rewritten around them. Cassie tries to remember if there have been other people in the room, but fails.

"Not quite." Lauren blinks into existence in the centre of the room. "Am I late?" she asks, glaring at the gadget on her wrist. "It's not quite as imprecise as the TARDIS, but I set it to arrive 24 hours ago." Only then does she look up and take in their bewildered stares. "Vortex manipulator. Best not to ask where I got it. Future _Earth_ tech."

"A time travel device?" Alex asks warily. "Aren't you worried the Time Lords will notice?" Of the four of them, Alex is the least inclined to this sort of intrigue. Lauren learnt it at Sarah Jane's knee - probably at the same age as Cassie when Ace was teaching her how to mix explosives, and Cassie suspects Johnny just sees it as an exciting boys' own adventure. Alex is the one who _wanted_ a normal life.

"With the amount of time travel, time distortion, and pure rewriting of history going on these days? Eventually, they'll notice, but it will give us the opportunity we need, as long as we're quick about it." Lauren pauses dramatically waiting for one of them to ask the obvious question.

Cassie rolls her eyes. Lauren can be so dramatic sometimes. "What opportunity?" she asks in the most bored voice she can muster.

Lauren gives her an exasperated look, which Cassie ignores. "We take advantage of the fact that Earth's timeline isn't part of the war, it just intersects it. I think there's a chance that we can shift your parents' time during the war so it intersects with people who couldn't be there till after the war was over."

"I'm guessing my parents are out of the running because Mum's one of _them_." Alex never did like Susan's people, even before the war. "But why Cassie's? Why not Johnny's? Or even yours?" Alex asks, before Cassie has a chance to.

"Because her parents were in the right place at the right time - she was born during the war, not before it, like the three of us. Not after it, like River." Lauren must see the bewilderment in Cassie's eyes, because she lays a hand on Cassie's shoulder and adds, "You're still caught in the war timeline, Cassie. If this works, you'll have a chance to see what happens after."

"So how does this work?" Cassie asks finally, putting down her cup of tea, which has grown cold in her hands. If it ever existed.

"We've got one chance to get this right," Lauren says as she unstraps the Vortex Manipulator from her wrist and hands it to Cassie. 

Cassie doesn't ask how she's acquired it - if anyone can get their hands on one, it's Lauren Smith. She wraps the leather strap around her wrist. It's reassuringly solid in a world that feels like it might disappear at any moment.

"Are you sure you don't want me to do it alone?" Lauren asks, when Cassie doesn't say anything. Lauren doesn't suggest that Alex do it, or Johnny. And Peter - well, Peter would stick out like a sore thumb on 1970s Earth. 

Has Peter been here all along? Cassie can't remember. "No. It's my life they're stealing." Cassie stops staring at the device and looks at Lauren. "I should be the one asking if you want to come along. This isn't your fight." They both know that Lauren is in more danger than Cassie of being erased. Given what Sarah Jane has been doing to sustain Earth's timeline against both the Time Lords' and the Daleks' machinations, there is no way that Lauren won't be considered her mother's agent if she is caught doing something like this.

"It's our fight. Our lives. The Time Lords can't decide if we're a threat, or a backup plan for when they lose too many of their own, but they will eventually, and either way, we lose." Lauren takes Cassie's hand. "Let's do this thing."

* * *

They land in a field beside an inn outside Paris. Neither of them has much French, but Lauren pulls out a photograph of Ace and they communicate well enough with gestures and simple words. Cassie's parents were there not long ago, but now they are gone.

It's Cassie's eagle eyes that spot the note, scratched on the side of the inn in English. _We still have our keys and we'll always want to go home._

"I wonder if the Doctor ever saw that?" Cassie says, remembering how long it took for him to find her parents. Long enough for them to marry and have her.

"Who knows with the Doctor?" Lauren shrugs and reaches for Cassie's hand. "What's next? Brighton."

Cassie nods and sets the Vortex Manipulator, wondering, not for the first time, why Lauren didn't just hold on to it. But it isn't worth asking Lauren - she'll never give Cassie a straight answer.

* * *

"I haven't even been conceived yet. We're still safe," Cassie says, but Lauren is not persuaded. This doesn't prevent Cassie from getting a job at the hospital where Hex works, a fact she's careful not to share with Lauren. It isn't too hard, on those late shifts, to get Hex talking about Ace, so Cassie knows when her parents cross the line from friends to lovers.

Lauren refuses to speak of her plan. She writes some articles for a local paper and the occasional bit of advertising copy. She doesn't tell Cassie what she does while Cassie's at work, and Cassie doesn't think to ask. Lauren's never admitted it, but Cassie's half-convinced Lauren can sometimes see the future. Or perhaps she's from the future. Alex and Peter are.

Throwing caution to the wind, Cassie persuades Lauren to join her at one of the parties Hex has invited her to. Somehow her parents forgot to mention to their five-year-old daughter that they'd been involved in the gay and lesbian scene (her memories after that are foggy and unreliable), but when she and Lauren are mistaken for a couple, neither one objects, though they laugh about it later. 

They only go to one. Lauren is not fond of loud parties and she's grown fidgety and bored in Brighton. "There's nothing we can do here," she mutters more than once, just loud enough for Cassie to hear, but for Cassie, just getting to know her dad is enough. It's Cassie who brings home the news that Ace and Hex are preparing to emigrate.

"Time for us to go, then." Lauren says. Cassie's already fished the Vortex Manipulator out of the drawer, where it has been buried for months.

They leave before Cassie's parents do.

* * *

They skip Boston, where Cassie was conceived. Lauren's convinced the answer lies in New York City and Cassie doesn't argue. It's only a matter of time before the Time Lords notice what they're doing and the fewer trips they make through the vortex, the better. Cassie's uncertain memories mean that they arrive in the city a month early, but that gives them time to settle in to the rhythms of the city.

Lauren is happier in New York. Cassie is too. It isn't too hard to get a job at the hospital where her dad will work sometime in the near future and she likes nursing. Her supervisor, Rory Williams, mentions an apartment for rent in his floor. It's a little noisy and a little shabby but Cassie looks at the building's address and realizes it's a floor below where her parents lived/will live in the city and that makes it perfect. Rory and Amy quickly become friends and to Cassie's surprise, Lauren doesn't object.

They quickly fall into a routine. Cassie goes to work and Lauren stays at home and writes. Cassie half expects her to pick up journalism again as she did in Brighton, but no, Lauren says she's going to write a book for children. Cassie is dubious, but Lauren reads bits to her when she's getting ready for work and it's a decent story. They have enough money to get by, for now, so Cassie doesn't pressure Lauren to get a job while they wait. Even after Rory retires, Cassie finds the work rewarding enough to keep her going until her parents arrive.

At last, Hex shows up at the hospital. He's slightly wary when he runs into Cassie, but pleased too. Cassie got the sense in Brighton that her parents were very isolated during the war, which she hadn't picked up on when she was younger. Cassie invites him to dinner without giving it much thought and then realizes she has no excuse if they offer to let her hold her younger self. Thankfully, he refuses, citing the need to find a flat. Cassie isn't surprised to run into both of her parents, baby in tow, that evening in the lobby and encourages them to take the apartment above her. They move in the next day.

Cassie decides that even Lauren's antisocial tendencies can't prevent them from being neighbourly, so she gets home determined to do something to welcome Ace and Hex to the building. Instead she finds Lauren and Amy planning a special dinner.

"I sold my manuscript to Amy's publisher," Lauren says excitedly. Cassie hasn't figured out why this means so much to her, given Lauren's disinclination to involve herself in the world around her in Brighton any more than it took to support themselves. "We're having a party to celebrate."

It's not a big party. Just the three couples and Cassie's baby self. Cassie finds herself in a corner with Hex and Rory comparing nursing stories, which suits her better than cooing over the baby with Amy and Ace, and when she looks up Lauren is gone. Cassie ignores the chill that runs down her spine, forcing herself to review the simplest explanations first. Kitchen, loo, bedroom. The front door swings open and Lauren appears with another woman in tow. Cassie feels that immediate click of recognition in her brain and knows this is what Lauren has been looking for. Or perhaps waiting for.

"Sorry, I just ran down to the shop to get more wine," Lauren raises a bottle as proof, "and ran into River in the hallway, looking for Amy and Rory."

Lauren's mentioned River once before, but it takes Cassie until the end of the party to place the context. Cassie waits until everyone else has left before she corners Lauren. "She's one of us."

"A post-Time War baby. And now that she's met you and your parents in this timeline, the Time Lords will have a much harder time erasing you from history." Lauren explains as though it's the simplest thing in the world. "You're a part of time after the war now."

"That's why you wanted to write that novel - to integrate yourself with Amy and Rory so you could introduce them to Mum and Dad." 

Cassie doesn't hear Lauren's answer. Instead she finds herself, age 5, standing beside her mother in Seattle, staring at the TARDIS. Feeling herself flicker in and out of reality. 

"I'm right here," Cassie says, half whispering, too afraid to shout. But her parents can't see her at all. She watches them walk into the TARDIS and disappear.

She sits down on the curb, cursing Lauren, not knowing what she's going to do next. The vortex manipulator is still in a desk drawer in 1978 and she's only a kid. She doesn't notice when someone sits down beside her.

"Fancy meeting you here."

Cassie looks up to see Johnny's familiar grin. "Your tour. I forgot all about it." Ace had insisted on getting tickets. She'd been a huge Johnny Chess fan back in the day.

"I didn't," Johnny replies. "And here we both are."

"Won't your band think it strange when you show up with a kid in tow?" Cassie asks. She's dying to ask about Lauren, but she's not sure if she wants to know the answer.

"They won't ever see you. I'm just here in case your Mum is late."

"My Mum?" Cassie hears the motorcycle before she sees it, watches as its rider screeches to a halt in front of her. She knows that jacket. "Where did you come from?

"My bike travels in time," Ace says, explaining everything and nothing. Her Mum hands her a helmet. "Your dad's waiting."

Cassie puts the helmet on, waves good-bye to Johnny, and wraps her arms around Ace's waist. She's going home.

**Author's Note:**

> People referenced in the story:  
> Lauren (Smith)- from the short trip [Lily](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Lily_\(short_story\)) by Jackie Marshall (Lauren is namechecked but doesn't appear)  
> Johnny Chesterton - from various extended universe novels (Barbara & Ian's son)  
> Peter - Peter Summerfield from the Benny Summerfield audios (Benny's son)  
> Alex Campbell - from the Doctor Who audios (David & Susan's son)  
> Cassie (McShane) - OC from the original story (Ace & Hex's daughter)


End file.
